


Guiding Star

by fmo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, M/M, Soulmates, science nerd Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 23:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3548015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fmo/pseuds/fmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through all the chaos and coincidence of your life, a symbol will reappear: a recurring shape, or idea, or image that turns up again and again, just for you. Only you can figure out what it is; sometimes that's easy, and sometimes it's hard. </p><p>This symbol is called your Clue. And once you know what it is, it will help you know your soulmate--because your soulmate's Clue will be the same as yours.</p><p>Steve Rogers figures out his Clue pretty early on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guiding Star

Steve figures out his Clue when he’s twelve—but, really, he should have figured it out sooner.

His mother said that, before he was born, she was sure she was going to have a girl. She’d already picked out the name—Stella—so when Steve turned out to be a boy, she ended up choosing a name that sounded similar. St—eve.

That was back when they lived on Polaris Street. But they move on soon enough to an apartment off the little alley, Dipper Lane, which is where Steve grows up.

He goes to St. Leo’s for elementary school.

During the spring and summer and early autumn, when it’s warm outside in the evening, he likes to sit out on the fire escape and look at the sky. It’s relaxing, even though it puts his mother into a state of loving frustration when there’s a lot of pollen or soot outside that’s likely to get him sneezing.

But he doesn’t put it together until it’s the end of seventh grade. He’s leafing through his composition notebooks from the year, and he notices that among all his doodles there’s one that’s present on almost every page: a star. Little stars glimmering in the spaces between his absent-minded sketches of a dog or the flag—but then he realizes that that has stars too. Even the dog has a star-shaped marking on its back. 

Years now, he’s been drawing stars everywhere. He never noticed it.

It’s the strangest realization to have on an idle day in June, just when summer vacation’s about to start and he’s tidying his bedroom. Once he’s realized it, stars are everywhere: emblazoned on his winter hat; hidden on the wrappers of the Tootsie Pops his mother buys him on special occasions; peppered over every page he’s ever put pencil to, apparently.

He sits back on his heels and breathes in. It’s his Clue. A good, simple, easy-to-see clue. A star.

A week later, he gets knocked over by the kid in his apartment building whose widowed father always spends too long saying hello to Steve’s mother when she’s carrying her groceries in through the hall. Sometimes, he asks her if she’s busy on Saturday, or tells her she’s lovely in the hat she’s wearing. Always, Steve’s mother just smiles tightly and says she’s sorry she’s so busy, but she has to go.

Then Steve’s mother locks and bolts the door behind them.

Steve has had words with this kid more than once, telling him to tell his dad to leave Steve’s mother alone. It’s not at the point that they’re enemies, but the kid’s big like his father, and says he’ll do what he wants and his dad’ll do what he wants, too. Usually it ends up with Steve getting knocked down, just like this time.

Except this time, when the kid’s gone and Steve’s sprawled on the ground assessing the damage—his head’s spinning a little, but his cheek doesn’t feel like he’s bruised too bad—that he hears a voice.

“You okay? You must be seeing stars.”

He sits up gingerly and sees another kid about his age, but bigger and broader, looking down at him with open concern. The kid has a copy of _Amazing Stories_ tucked under one arm.

Later that afternoon, Bucky gives Steve the copy of _Amazing Stories_ to borrow. On the cover of it, there’s an alien looking out a window at a galaxy.

*

Bucky grows up with big dreams of becoming a scientist, just like in _Amazing Stories_. When _War of the Worlds_ broadcasts, Bucky can’t be peeled away from the radio. He’s going to go to college, he tells Steve. That’s what he’ll do: maybe he’ll work a few years first, but then he’ll save up and go to college and he’ll work somewhere and they’ll find a way to put a man on the moon.

Neither of them can buy a telescope, and the light from Brooklyn’s sleepless windows makes it hard to really see what’s up there, but Bucky knows all the stars’ names by heart anyway—even the ones that ought to be there, but aren’t quite visible from the city. Steve never tells Bucky that he knew them, too, before Bucky taught them to him when they were thirteen. He just liked to hear Bucky talk when he explained, hands gesturing over the night sky as though he owned it, praising Steve when Steve remembered the names right.

Bucky doesn’t know that Steve’s Clue is a star, but then it’s not like you can talk about Clues with your friends anyway. They’re something just for you, a private message. So Steve forcibly stops himself from doodling stars in his books, or turns them into geometric shapes when he looks down and realizes he’s done it anyway.

When Steve looks over at Bucky’s notes in school, he sees planets and suns and moons and stars, along with—sometimes—funny-shaped rocket ships. Bucky’s not the best artist.

Bucky never says anything about his own Clue either, so Steve can’t be sure. Maybe Bucky hasn’t figured out his Clue yet. Maybe it’s a star and Bucky doesn’t know. More likely, it’s not a star at all.

It’s possible for these things to go one way; there are enough tragic novels and pictures about that. And Steve's never seen any sign of Bucky—of Bucky being someone whose match wouldn't be a girl. Girls love Bucky, and he loves them.

If it does go just one way, though—it’s all right. At least Steve's not one of those people who’re lost, who can’t decipher their Clue within the chaos of the universe. He sees it, clear as can be even if his vision isn’t so good, and that feels right because he knows Bucky is the person who matches him. Even if he doesn’t match Bucky, he still has all the summer days Bucky spends with him out in the sunshine, all the books that are just SteveandBucky's because they've swapped them so often, all the schoolday afternoons when he sits at Bucky’s kitchen table so they can do their homework, elbow to elbow.  He still has Bucky’s friendship; even if their Clues don’t match, and even if Bucky’s Clue is going to tell him one day that a girl he’s met is for him, he’d rather that than never meeting Bucky at all. He turns it over in his mind a lot, and he finds that he'd never choose not meeting Bucky at all. 

When he was little, he’d worried he wouldn’t have a Clue at all. He was so sick all the time; sometimes it felt like everything about him was wrong, not how it was supposed to be. But if he has Bucky—if he has the Clue, still showing up strong every day of his life, telling him there’s a pattern that led Bucky to him and kept him there—then maybe that means he’s not so wrong after all.

At home, in private, he draws Bucky, and then at the edge of the page he lets himself draw the stars that he won’t put on paper anywhere Bucky could see. They fit Bucky, he thinks. A star.

*

Bucky wants to go to the Exposition to look at Howard Stark’s flying car and the planetarium exhibit (only fifty cents, Steve, come on!).

Steve leaves before they can get to the planetarium. Maybe it’s planets that are Bucky’s Clue, after all. Maybe it’s stars that are Connie’s Clue as well as Bucky’s.

He ends up saying goodbye to Bucky underneath the flag anyway.

*

When they show Steve the finished Captain America costume, Steve feels like he shouldn’t be surprised.

*

That white star over his heart is still there, just revealed by his leather jacket, when he brings Bucky back from Azzano. As he walks with Bucky by his side—Bucky still worn, still tattered and hollow-eyed, but alive and walking and calm—he thinks, _Is it so obvious_?

He can’t help but keep turning to glance at Bucky, to make sure he’s still there: a warm presence by his side, a rhythm of steady footsteps. He’d forgotten the comfort of having Bucky there, where Steve’s body knows he’s supposed to be.

*

It’s Bucky who suggests that Howard put a pattern on the shield as well—a bullseye pattern to draw fire, which is the point of the shield—but Howard who slaps a star on the center instead of an ordinary dot. “Got to stick with the theme,” Howard says with a smirk as he hands the shield over.

Bucky puts his hand over his eyes and laughs. “Look at you,” he says to Steve.

Steve turns the shield over in his hands, so light for all its size, and the star is bright, bright and clear.

*

“Did you know Hydra’s a constellation?” Bucky says one late night when they’re camping on the side of a mountain, wind whistling outside their tent. “’Cause Hercules is up there too, I guess it fits.”

“I guess,” Steve says. He’s never thought Hercules was much of a hero, despite all his strength and divine birth.

Steve can hear Bucky settling down to sleep, then, with his usual sounds, and it's so much of a comfort that even the thought of the next day's mission can't reach through it. Bucky is near him, and at rest, and that's how it's supposed to be.

Outside the tent, there are little purple flowers, almost like daisies, with orange hearts.

 *

In the bar, among all the destroyed bottles, there’s one bottle of wine left. On the label—

Steve throws it against the wall, and then can’t look at what he’s done.

In London, in the blackout, if he looks up at night, the sky is perfectly clear: the kind of sky they dreamed about back in Brooklyn.

*

In the future—

In the future, Steve learns, some people are more open about their Clues. Clint Barton is happy to tell anyone that his is an arrow, but then he’s an odd guy. Most other people Steve’s met, including Natasha, are silent about the idea.

There are some books that speculate about what Steve’s Clue was. Some say the star, but others say that’s too obvious. Others say the letter A (really? A letter as a Clue?) or even the wings that were the Howling Commando and SSR symbol. Some say a shield.

Steve never brings it up, and nobody asks.

But he lets them re-paint the shield, and when they show him the new uniform he sees that although he asked for it to be plain, the star is still there, where it’s always been.

*

On a rooftop and then a street in DC, there’s a man with a red star on his arm.

It sets Steve’s head spinning. The man’s an enemy; it doesn’t have to mean anything. It shouldn’t. But then he looks at the man’s eyes and his hair and the way he stands and thinks—

Thinks he has to get the man’s mask off, so he does. As it clatters to the ground, the man—Bucky—turns. Bucky turns.

And Steve can’t believe it, but at the same time he knew it as soon as he saw his Clue there in red. It couldn't have been anyone else.

*

As they sit at a table in Fury’s bunker and eat a reheated meal, Steve breaks the silence to ask if Sam or Natasha knows what the red star on Bucky’s arm means. He knows that, by asking, he’s telling them what his Clue is. That doesn’t seem to matter any more. 

It’s a Russian symbol, Natasha says. She looks pale, and she’s only eating with one arm, but she’s still sitting upright. She remembers a Bolshevik story called _Red Star_. A science fiction novel.

Steve just nods, and Sam and Natasha kindly say nothing else.

*

Steve and Sam don’t find Bucky. Steve looks, because he can’t do otherwise, but after they’ve crossed a globe’s worth of night skies with no result Steve sees how tired Sam looks and knows that he’s being selfish. Sam’s been the best friend in the world to him; now it’s time for Steve to be a friend to Sam, like he should be.

Steve calls off the search.

He can’t go back to Brooklyn, not now, but when he tries to go back to DC—he can’t stop seeing what happened in the streets there.

He lives in Stark’s tower in Manhattan for a while, until Tony builds a robot that goes crazy, like something out of _Amazing Stories_ , but then after the fighting there is done Steve has to go. He drives around for a while. Visits all the places he never got to see, even on his war bonds tours. He texts Sam pictures of things that he sees. When he sees diners called _The Lone Star Café_ or _Andromeda’s_ , he goes in and sits, gets a cup of coffee, and waits. And then, when nobody finds him there, he leaves. 

When summer spins around again, Tony Stark invites Steve to come to a ball game with him. Stark’s in Miami—maybe he can’t go back to Manhattan now either—and maybe it’s an apology for the Ultron disaster, even though Steve’s hardly the one who Tony needs to apologize to.

Because he has no reason to say no, Steve goes, and finds Stark, Pepper Potts and Bruce Banner in a VIP box in Marlins Park. Very luxurious, trays of food there, and Steve texts pictures of it to Sam and wishes he was back in Sam’s living room eating potato chips in front of the TV. His head aches; he can’t help but think of listening to the games on the radio back in Brooklyn, and then, after that, the fake game on the radio in 2011.

The game starts. Banner doesn’t even follow baseball; turns out that Pepper is the fan here, so she ends up explaining it to him while Stark’s occupied with his phone. While they’re all distracted, Steve sneaks out of the VIP box and goes out to the parking lot to sit on the hood of his car.

The sky’s still bright blue, no clouds in sight, and just a light breeze to gentle the warmth of the air among the rows and rows of glossy cars. He can still hear the sounds from the stadium. It’s probably ungrateful of Steve to leave, but he couldn’t bear staying, either.

He can’t give up wanting to find Bucky. Maybe the red star means that Bucky’s his and maybe it was just meant to tell him to look for the face behind the mask. Maybe Bucky’s Clue was a star and maybe it wasn’t; he knew Bucky his whole life and he still can’t say for sure. But everywhere he goes, there are still stars. On the side of a train in Minneapolis, and drawn on his pancakes with syrup in Cleveland, for Pete’s sake.

A sound of footsteps, like someone wanting to be heard, makes him look around.

It’s Bucky. It’s not just the Winter Soldier’s unknowing gaze, it’s _Bucky’s_ face he’s seeing because it’s Bucky’s way of looking at him through the bright sunlight. It’s Bucky’s uncertainty, it’s Bucky’s intelligence and knowledge in those blue eyes.

Steve’s on his feet before he even knows it. “Bucky,” he says.

“Hi,” Bucky says, quiet, then closes his mouth again, jaw tight. He’s wearing a baseball cap and a denim jacket and it looks like maybe his hair is shorter; his hands are shoved in his pockets, like they used to be when he wanted to say something to Steve and knew it would make Steve mad.

Then Bucky takes a folded-up bit of newspaper out of his pocket and holds it out.

Steve unfolds it: the headline reads, _“Marlins host MLB All-Star Game Tuesday_.”

“I thought you would be here,” Bucky says, his voice a little rough.

The little bit of paper feels so small in Steve’s hand, but his hand might be shaking. “Guess there was a reason my Clue kept showing up,” Steve says.  It never gave up; he’s been a fool. “I should’ve listened. I’m sorry—“

“I thought it was just mine,” Bucky says, sounding lost. “I think. The star? I didn’t know if it was . . .”

“I didn’t think it was yours,” Steve says. He should have—if only he had—

Bucky says, “The first time I met you, you had dirt on your cheek. But the way it was smudged, it looked like a star. I tried to see if you—“

Steve’s heart breaks. “I’m sorry,” he says, reaching out, and Bucky steps forward and then they’re in one another’s arms and he’s saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was so stupid.” Bucky's hair is brushing against the side of his face, and his heart is pounding but he hasn't felt this comfort since that night on the mountain, when Bucky was there. Bucky is here, now, and Steve can close his eyes at last under the summer sun and listen to the sound of Bucky breathing.

“You’re my match,” Bucky says softly, into his ear. “You’re my match.”

“We are,” Steve says, holding Bucky like he might never let him go.

 *

Later, in a room with a window overlooking Brooklyn, Steve pushes up Bucky's t-shirt sleeve and then gently kisses the red star, and Bucky breathes a deep breath like he's been underwater for decades. 

Later, Bucky plants seeds in window-boxes under those windows, and soon the window-boxes fill with those little purple flowers, almost like daisies, that they used to see everywhere in the mountains in Europe during the war.

Later, they go up onto the roof of their building and look up at the night sky that never left them, even if the city light sometimes made it hard to see clearly, and Steve marvels at the kindness and cruelty of the pattern, the Clue, that has pulled them together again after so long. And he promises to himself that he'll never look away from it again—because as long as it's there, so is Bucky. And Bucky is there, warm by his side, talking about light pollution and Sputnik and some movie about black holes that he wants Steve to go to with him, and Steve will, of course. He always will.

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmate AU is my favorite form of id-fic. I require nothing less than perfect wish fulfillment from this trope.
> 
> Please leave comments!
> 
> Come say hi to me at fmowrites.tumblr.com, and if you found this fic through a rec, please tell me! I love to hear about being recced.


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